"The data you help us generate will be quickly and openly disseminated as part of an open science collaboration of multiple laboratories around the world, giving researchers new tools that may unlock new opportunities for developing lifesaving drugs," said Folding@home director Greg Bowman in apost detailing the project.

"While we will rapidly release the simulation data sets for others to use or analyse, we aim to look for alternative conformations and hidden pockets within the most promising drug targets, which can only be seen in simulation and not in static X-ray structures," said Folding@home computational chemist John Chodera.

"We hope that these structures -- once validated by emerging compound screening data -- could help direct the virtual screening campaigns or the targeting of new pockets for which atomistic structures were not yet available."